Omphalos Bullet

[Yygdrasil]

It drops from the T3 VNM Akvan in Lower Delks. You need the T3 White Stratum to pop the VNM. Drop rates are not yet posted... but I would have to agree that it is probably incredibly low.

[Greatguardian]

Agreed, but since it doesn't apply to everyone, my complaint that they should have made it a regenerating pouch rather than a single bullet is valid. Some people will shoot this bullet off in the heat of a tough battle and as we've seen with conquest ammo, SE was willing to fix that problem with a novel solution that everyone approved of. Now they've gone backwards in their thinking process.

Fair enough. I can imagine it would be extremely aggravating, even for someone who macros their bullet swaps every time, to fire a shot and realize they had no Steels to swap back into after Quick Draw. I actually lost quite a few Oberon's that way before adding that line to my Spellcast >.>

[SpankWustler]

Is it not possible to fix the issue of losing rare ammunition just by adding "/equip ammo" as the first line of every macro, well before the line that equips steel bullets? It's the solution I've always heard from people who don't use Spellcast.

That's what I'm using as a quick-fix at the moment, also. It would be neat to be told that such a method doesn't work consistently before I find out the hard way.

[Greatguardian]

Actually, that sounds pretty ingenious. You'd need a wait in there, though, that's the only thing. When you have two equip lines for the same slot in the same macro without a wait, they just function as a toggle.

[Arcon]

Actually, that sounds pretty ingenious. You'd need a wait in there, though, that's the only thing. When you have two equip lines for the same slot in the same macro without a wait, they just function as a toggle.

I used to do that, but it just sucked having to add that line to every macro, especially if it includes gearchanges and they were pushed to another macro and so on. At least it works (if you only hit macros and don't select stuff from the menu, or via the command line).

[SpankWustler]

Speaking entirely theoretically, if someone were an odd-duck who used some non-kosher stuff but not Spellcast specifically, that fellow might include a 0.1 wait in his macros.

For vanilla macros, putting "/equip ammo" in the first macro and "/equip ammo Steel Bullet" in the second (or third or fourth) macro should work. It's not like you're fitting everything you need to equip in one normal macro, anyway.

[Mirabelle]

Is it not possible to fix the issue of losing rare ammunition just by adding "/equip ammo" as the first line of every macro, well before the line that equips steel bullets? It's the solution I've always heard from people who don't use Spellcast.

That's what I'm using as a quick-fix at the moment, also. It would be neat to be told that such a method doesn't work consistently before I find out the hard way.

Problem with this is that those users that don't have spellcast are most likely those with limited macro slots (360, Ps2/3 users, non-windower PC users). Giving up macro lines is precious.

[Greatguardian]

If they're playing on consoles, they're going to have to press 3+ macros per swap in order to be even halfway-decently gear swapping anyways, so adding another line to that really isn't that big of a deal. You have 16 gear slots, and obviously your Gun, Main, and Sub aren't changing so that's 13 gear swaps right there, which requires 3 macros and leaves 5 lines left over. If you include the /ra in the last line, that's still 4 lines of "spare" macro space where you can pop the second /equip ammo line.

[Mirabelle]

You can be halfway decent with 2 macro swap presses. You have to make a areas less priority and look for value items at certain slots rather than "the single best item". I've found that trying to play the 3 macro swap game leads to a) significant delays in performing certain actions that need to be quick (self skillchains, stuns, cures, sleeps, etc), b) bogging down in laggy situations leading to misfiring of macros and c) significant hand pain after a few hours of playing.

Others may be gifted enough not to have these problems and if they want to hit a ton of shoulder button presses to do a simple action in the best gear available, that's fine. The day it actually impairs my ability to do my job adequately I likely will quit the game. I'd rather not get repetitive strain injuries from a hobby. For now, macro slots remain precious for me and I won't willingly give them up for an unequip ammo line.

[Greatguardian]

All of those things you're mentioning here are pretty much exactly why so many people just play on PC =/. The macro interface is miles ahead of the PS2 vanilla interface. And yes, it really does just prevent people from performing optimally.

It's not fun to have to hit 5 macros to do anything, especially time-intensive actions, but it's also not fun at all to be doing 300-400 damage less per Wildfire than the Corsair next to you just because they play on PC and you don't. Whoever says that you can do anything extended macros can do with normal macros can do is a liar. Unfortunately, that's just the way the game is right now.

There are easy solutions for anyone playing on PC, and there are solutions for people who play on vanilla consoles. They can't give PC functionality to consoles, no matter how much we may want them to. Personally, it's my belief that anyone who gives a crap about performing optimally while avoiding carpel tunnel syndrome should really just get the PC version of the game. Any computer made in the last 10 years can run FFXI just fine, and you can play with PS2, PS3, 360, and third party controllers on PC. You don't even really need to buy a new copy (you can torrent the install files), though if you wanted to stay legal you could just buy a cheap PC edition and have a spare code for a mule/friend or just borrow a CD/installer from a friend (not applicable on Steam I think).

However, I'm using the word optimal while you're using the word adequate. If you're content with setting the bounds of adequacy for yourself, that's your prerogative. If being less effective than the PC player next to you at ... well, everything, is adequate for you, that's also fine. It really does not bother me in the slightest. But that is a conscious decision that you make. Playing on a console means doing less damage, curing less HP, being less likely to land shots/hits, and taking longer to do the same things that PC players do. That's just the truth.

The short of it all is, there are solutions to accidentally misfiring this bullet for all players, PC and console alike. Regardless of its obvious uses as a QD piece, it is still a piece of ammunition and it would be silly to lock it from ever being fired. If it's important enough to you, there are ways to ensure that it is never fired accidentally. There's not much more that can be done.